Trees....even when I am not with you...

Trees

　

...even when I am not with you

I am with you

if only through my window

as you shed your fall attire and wait to don

your winter finery

　

a few of you left recently

decimated by the tree service

saws

　

I sat by watching as they

toppled you sent you crashing to the ground

where you sent shudders through me for

the last time and then

　

someone came to erase what was left

grind away at your soul

at the records of your years

your dust fell

mingled with the soil

and then I went out

to claim you

to scatter as much as I could of you

among my flowers

where you will never be forgotten

at least not by them

　

and now it's as if nothing was

ever there at all

as if you'd never stood there

straining beneath the taller trees that had

the advantage all along but you never gave up

reaching for the sun

ever

　

nor will I

　

ever

https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees...you've shaken your great heads...

Trees

you've shaken your great heads

in consternation

all these thousands of years

at the Great Destroyer

the worm

that tunnels through

the soil at your feet

through men's minds

devouring

consuming

leaving behind

a vast blank black space

where goodness

cannot root

cannot thrive

for such things

need the wetness of tears

the warmth of embraces

tease of wind

and the glimmer of stars

to sprout

to grow

to fill the world

with color

to trim the void

making of it the small

insubstantial

immaterial thing

it deserves to be

you've told us

time and again

you've used the wind

to keen in the night

you've quaked and trembled

offered yourselves as

sacrifice as restitution

atonement for wrongs

you yourselves

were never guilty of

could never be

held accountable for

and all you ask

all you ever ask

is one small thing

that we not wonder

if you shed your leaves

 

sooner

 

this year

　

　

 

https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS

Trees...you weep today...

Trees

                you weep today
for the passing of a friend
ancient and loyal
it stood

for what might have been
forever
cheered your birth from the soil
sheltered you from wind
and sun
then held you

let go at just the right

time
as you learned to walk
through the pages of our thoughts
and experiences
explored the process
of becoming the
thing that screams
nature
the loudest
as fodder for our poems


Long after this rain
you will weep
for the great space
left open by its passing
the vines that embraced it
lost now along the fence
frightened clinging
wondering what happened
and why they weren't told
of the sentence imposed
on their innocent

https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS